


Equations (And Other Things That Make Sense)

by storytimewithme6



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Bad Boy Trope, But It Is Skimmed Over, Daddy Issues, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Recreational Drug Use, Referenced past abuse, rough childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:00:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27018454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storytimewithme6/pseuds/storytimewithme6
Summary: They are fourteen when they meet. Mark's mother has just met an untimely death, leaving him alone with a stepfather who cares far more about a bottle of alcohol than the child he is now tasked with. Donghyuck's own father went to the store for milk six years ago and never came back. Mark's eyes are kind, shaped with soft edges like an almond, but the light behind them is dim, flickers only when they talk about his love of music.(But, he's kind of pretty, Jeno, the way his lip bleeds down his chin, the way his eyes shine from the tears he has failed to hold back. His shoulders are wiry, but his face is shaped, like he has eaten, but blessed with a fast metabolism. The light of the smile he holds is as fake as the smile itself.)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Jeno/Mark Lee, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57





	Equations (And Other Things That Make Sense)

**Author's Note:**

> hi i've never written anything like this before  
> i'm sorry if it sucks i really wrote it all in one night & haven't touched it since. not edited.

Donghyuck likes it rough. 

He likes the scars on his knees from the skatepark. He likes the bruises that bloom on each of his knuckles and on the orbital bones of his face. He likes the way his lips bleed when he gets into fights in the school locker room, likes the way his foot digs into the soft stomach of some kid who got too cocky. 

Donghyuck is- by all definitions- rough. He is a walking stereotype and cannot bring himself to care. He revels in it. He smokes cigarettes and his fingernails are painted black and red, though the paint has chipped. He wears heavy silver jewelry- rings that he has picked up along the way, because he likes the way they accentuate his hands. His nailbeds bleed because of the way he bites them raw.

Donghyuck learns from an early age, a childhood filled with after school detentions and numerous suspensions, to like the way his teachers look at him with pity & the way his classmates look at him in disgust. 

Enter: Mark.

They are fourteen when they meet. Mark's mother has just met an untimely death, leaving him alone with a stepfather who cares far more about a bottle of alcohol than the child he is now tasked with. Donghyuck's own father went to the store for milk six years ago and never came back. Mark's eyes are kind, shaped with soft edges like an almond, but the light behind them is dim, flickers only when they talk about his love of music. 

When they have known each other for about two years, & it is June in the summer of 2015 & the sun is set high in the sky, Mark pushes Donghyuck's shoulders against the wall of his room & kisses him slowly. 

Donghyuck realizes this makes sense, as his tongue coasts along the inside of Mark's mouth. He tastes like cherry coke and one of the lollipops that he had stolen from the mart around the corner. 

Donghyuck allows his hands to come to Mark's face, runs his thumbs over the skin of his cheeks. He maps the imperfections with his fingertips. Engrains them in his brain. The scar on his cheek that is so small it is often missed by a casual glance. The rough patch of hair just under Mark's chin, that he had missed with a razor this morning. 

When they pull apart, two breathy teenagers with racing hearts and unsteady hands, Donghyuck realizes that they are whole when together. Like maybe, if life would allow, they would never have to be separate again. 

Two halves of an equation that has only one solution.

•

It is years later. The time crawls, but they get by. They shed numerous personas, grow out of a ton of interests. They get part-time jobs, lose them, and then they are seniors in high school. 

It is remarkable that they have made it this far, in Mark's mind at least. He didn't even know if he'd make it to eighteen, let alone be happy at such. 

They fight sometimes, when Donghyuck's eyes are bloodshot from cheap weed and when Mark threatens to take comfort in a bottle of alcohol. But they compromise, they grow. Donghyuck walks away until he's sober enough to talk it out. Mark never picks up that drink. Each fight ends with promises of a better future. 

Donghyuck only comes to class because Mark asks him to. Mark only finds new work because he likes to surprise Donghyuck with food he hasn't had to steal.

School is a buzz this year. There is fresh blood- a boy, from another province. His name is short, not foreign with sounds that make sense to the Korean tongue. When he arrives, the excitement dulls. The student body nearly rips him from his flesh. His language skills are rough, his Korean is sloppy & his dialect is strong. They mock his mistakes in formal settings like the classroom & gossip about his inability to make friends. 

They first meet when someone's- (Yunho, is that his name?) fist has left an imprint on Jeno's face. Mark and Donghyuck are passing by, and then suddenly they are not. Before Donghyuck can blink his eyelashes one more time, Mark is pulling the abuser by his collar, slamming him into the lockers and screaming in his face. 

Enter: Jeno.

Donghyuck does not understand why Mark does this, and perhaps he never will. Donghyuck helps the foreigner stand as Mark lands another right hook. In a glance, he can see the septum is deviated, watching the blood rush from the boy's right nostril. 

(Mark's going to pay for that. Another punch, and Donghyuck can hear the crush of knuckle. They'll have to steal ace bandages on their way home again, the way they used to.)

He's kind of pretty, the other boy, the way his lip bleeds down his chin, the way his eyes shine from the tears he has failed to hold back. His shoulders are wiry, but his face is shaped, like he has eaten, but blessed with a fast metabolism. The light of the smile he holds is as fake as the smile itself. 

"You got something," Donghyuck says in English that is so good even Mark has turned around, shocked. The bully is a mess on the floor. 

(Donghyuck will explain later that he was not even sure what the phrase meant, only seen it in television shows that play when Mark is long asleep.)

He extends a hand and wipes the spit from Jeno's chin, fingers light. The boy laughs through bloody teeth.

•

Time wilts away. Six months pass. It is almost like they are shells, & then they are not, making home of the encompassing structures. 

Donghyuck evaluates. 

Finds: Jeno is the third variable in their equation.

Donghyuck & Mark do not talk about it, but they are changing. Their twosome has turned into three. Mark spends his free time scratching out flashcards and teaching long math lessons to Jeno, who tries his very best. 

Donghyuck brings them a bag of Cheetos for snack. He jokes that Mark could have been top of his class if he tried as hard in school as he did on helping Jeno, before pressing kisses to Mark's left temple.

Jeno sometimes holds Mark's hand in the hallways at school. If anyone notices, they do not say anything. Sometimes, he will hold Donghyuck's instead, on the days Donghyuck will let him.

Jeno attends full days of class, & when he finishes, Donghyuck & Mark are parked outside the school, waiting for him. 

Mark watches Donghyuck's underbelly grow more exposed. He feels his own expand. He had never wanted it to be more than the two of them, had never needed anything other than Donghyuck's hand in his. 

(But it is different now, when it is not just the two of them, and it is not a bad different.)

Mark feels himself opening up to another person. He finds safety in whatever has presented itself. 

•

Here is how the scene paints itself: they are three. Six eyes, six arms, three noses. They are laying in Mark's bed on a Thursday. It is not Jeno's first overnight at their place, but that is seemingly unbeknownst to the fluttering in Donghyuck's stomach. 

The Winter has bled into the Spring. The flowers have rooted & began to sprout buds that cut through the breeze in search of warmth. 

Mark has chosen some slasher horror movie on cable, flipped it on & provided a bag of m&m's. There is no place in the world Donghyuck would rather be. 

"Do you have a sweatshirt I can wear?" Jeno asks, his head pillowed on the arm rest of the couch. Mark is in the lay-z-boy chair next to the couch, hands absently playing with Jeno's fringe. Donghyuck has Jeno's feet in his lap. 

Donghyuck stands up, pushing the feet off of his thighs, ignoring the way his throat closes when he looks at them both: Mark, eyes soft & fingers gentle- & Jeno, cheeks puffy from the food he'd eaten hours ago & hands fumbling with his own chain. 

Donghyuck takes a few short steps away from the couch, until he is able to reach into the third drawer of Mark's dresser, a drawer that had notoriously been Donghyuck's. 

He sifts through un-folded sweatshirts before settling on an old black sweatshirt from a pick-up soccer league he used to be in. 

The sweatshirt is big on him, meaning it should swallow Jeno. 

(It is a little self-indulgent to give him such a large article of clothing, although he'd never admit it).

He throws it over at Jeno. He pretends to look at Mark, & then the wall when Jeno takes off his shirt and replaces it with the new sweatshirt. He pretends he doesn't see every detail in the way Jeno moves, the lines of his stomach, the pinks of his nipples. He pretends he does not like the way he adjusts the neck, evening the strings before deciding he is content. He pretends not to be in love with the way Jeno pulls down on the sleeves, smiling at where the hems drop below his fingertips.

He is pretending to not feel this: the ache in his chest, full of want and lust and desire; or the way his tongue sits heavy in his mouth, like it does when Mark smiles early in the mornings or laughs a little too loud in the dark hours of the night. 

He is pretending. 

Donghyuck has always been bad at pretending.

•

Some things change. Some things do not. 

Donghyuck still likes it rough. 

He likes the way Mark fucks into him, with little to no preparation or warning, the way it burns the next day when he steps. He likes the way each thrust leaves him gasping for air. He most of all likes the way his lungs burn when Mark's hands grasp his throat & squeeze until his head is fuzzy & his eyes throb. His vision goes splotchy & all he can hear is Mark's growling in his ears.

"Say it," Mark says one night, with his hand firm around Donghyuck's neck, not yet pressing down. It is a comfortable weight. A reminder.

Donghyuck chokes out a questioning whine & moves his hands to Mark's shoulder blades. His nails are rough with where they trail down the elder boy's back, leaving track marks down the soft melanin of his skin. 

"Say you wish he was here right now," Mark affirms, & Donghyuck halts. His body is frozen with something he cannot describe. 

Mark locks eyes with him, nodding his head. "It's okay," he says, driving his hips forward again. A moan rips from Donghyuck's throat, loud & guttural in a way that nearly sends him over the edge. Mark smiles, "I bet he's so good with that mouth-"

"His hands," Donghyuck hiccups, & Mark finds a rhythm that is so heavenly, he nearly cries. "They'd f-feel so good, you're so- he's so good, fuck, Mark-"

•

They do not talk about it at length. Once Mark has cleaned the cum off of Donghyuck's lean stomach, & Donghyuck has rolled over into his embrace, he speaks. 

His voice echoes off the hollow of Mark's chest. Mark's arms are wrapped around his frame, keeping him grounded the way they always do. His chin rests atop Donghyuck's forehead. 

"Do you love him?" Donghyuck asks. He already knows the answer, he thinks, as he plays with the Saint Christopher plate that lays around Mark's neck. It is ironic. They have never thought much about religion. No God would put them through what they had been through in good faith. 

His mind races with the memories of Jeno's tutoring sessions. He thinks of Mark's hand holding Jeno's own. He thinks of the shirt Jeno stole from him after the first night he had slept over. He thinks of the blood in Jeno's mouth the day he got popped, the way Mark so eagerly threw himself in the middle of that.

Mark squeezes the flesh of Donghyuck's hip. There is not much to grab at, a whole lot of bone, but it fits perfectly in his palms anyway, like it was meant to be there. 

"Do you?" Mark poses back, & then Donghyuck is raising his head to connect their lips, hands rough & lips aggressive. 

•

When he is alone on a Sunday morning, somewhere between the slide of the Spring to the Summer, Donghyuck attempts to process things. The wheels of his skateboard spin beneath the pads of his fingers, halting abruptly when he presses his skin to the hard plastic. It leaves the tips red, agitated. He puts the fingers in his mouth to numb the pain.

The girls- likely middle schoolers- cross the street when they see him crouched down near the park bench. He recognizes that look, pretends he does not notice the way they whisper behind crescent-shaped hands. Donghyuck thinks of the way the people at school look at him. 

He knows he would not like it if Mark looked at him that way. The scared look in their eye, the way the pity in their gaze coats his entire being. He would not know what to do if Mark looked at him like that- he thinks maybe he'd fall apart. 

Then, he realizes, putting the board to the ground and stepping on, he would not like it if Jeno looked at him like that, either.

•

It is the Thursday after they have graduated, & they have stored themselves away in Mark's new one bedroom flat, like always. The Summer is pretty. It is a fresh start. 

Jeno has long ago slugged his overnight bag against the coat rack. Donghyuck does not bring a bag anymore, for he does not have to: there are drawers with his things and a blue toothbrush that belongs to him. 

There is a blunt between Donghyuck's fingers that stains with where it burns away. 

The buzz is nice, makes his head just the right amount of warm. His senses are slowed but heightened, & he feels arousal creeps into his flesh as he eyes the veins of Mark's hand and the flesh of Jeno's neck. His arms are exposed, a black scooped-neck shirt takes the place of where he wishes his hands were. He hands the blunt to Mark, watches as he takes a deep inhale of smoke, before he pushes the end into the coaster on the table before him.

Jeno curls into Mark's chest- his eye lids are heavy from the blunt, and his cheeks are bloated. It strikes Donghyuck that Jeno's head is where his own normally is, that Jeno is laying where Donghyuck usually sleeps. Jeno is in the arms of the only home Donghyuck has ever known, and it does not hurt.

Mark makes eye contact from above the youngest boy's head with Donghyuck, who sits close enough to the pair that Jeno's ankles, yet again, rest in his lap. 

"I'm gonna go to bed," Donghyuck says suddenly, ignoring the questioning noise that escapes Mark's lips.

Donghyuck attempts to stand, but Jeno pushes his heels into the couch & leaves him trapped in his seated position. Jeno is biting his lip, a questioning look in his eyes, staring at him from his position on Mark's chest. 

"I think we'll come with," Jeno says, & the words make Donghyuck want to die a little bit inside. He isn't sure how much longer he can do this, look at the two of them without wanting to see them kiss, without wanting to kiss them himself. His chest constricts, his lungs feel like they're burning with each half-assed inhale he takes. 

Jeno takes the pressure off of his heels & shrugs Mark's arm off from around his shoulders. "Come on then," Donghyuck says. Jeno leaves the couch first, bounding off towards the bed in two short steps. Donghyuck likes the way his hair moves gently when he moves, there is grace in the uncleanliness of his movements. 

Jeno laughs, pulling up on his shirt from the bottom hem, bringing it up over his brown hair. Donghyuck wants to run his hands through it. He adjusts & shakes his head afterwards, raking his fingers through his locks before crawling into the center of the bed.

"Are you coming?" He asks, & for a moment, Donghyuck's brain falters. The light streaming in from the window is red & yellow from the cars that crawl the streets- & it coats the sides of Jeno's face in a way that sort of makes Donghyuck want to fall through the floor. He looks at Mark, the same distorted shadows cast along his jaw & chin bones- & he feels the same way. 

Mark goes first, sliding his own shirt off the same way Jeno had previously. He raises the covers, allows Jeno to get in, & then climbs in himself. Jeno turns, his eyes still red, fingers shaking slightly. Donghyuck cannot bring himself to take his shirt off. He joins them under the covers, limbs heavy.

"Can I ask you something?" He says, & Mark props himself up on his left arm. His right hand reaches out to touch the side of Jeno's face as he nods. 

"Why did you do it?" Jeno asks, & his left hand comes up to caress Mark's cheek. His thumb dabs at Mark's lower lip, pushing down on it until it pulls back into place. "Why did you stop them? In the hallway."

Mark likes the way Jeno looks at him. His eyes are wide, like they are full of wonder, & there are lights in them unlike anything he has ever seen. "Something about you," Mark responds. Jeno's small fingers toy with the sharp edge of his chin, leaving to run down the side of his neck. His chest aches from the lack of breath, & then Jeno shifts his gaze suddenly, looking at Donghyuck.

Donghyuck giggles. It is like Mark to be so corny, to speak so cheesy but be so sincere. It is then, the depth of Jeno's gaze hits him, and soon his pupils are blown. 

His body feels tingly, numb in a way it never has felt before. A part of him thinks he may be crazy- somebody is touching Mark, his Mark, & it does not hurt. He does not want it to stop. Donghyuck just nods, pushes closer to the both of them.

"You," Jeno says, shifting to lay flat on his back. His left hand reaches up to grab at Donghyuck's chain. The hand is heavy, but not suffocating, with where Jeno's clutched fist lay on his sternum. "Couldn't figure you out... I can't figure you-"

"You're so pretty," Donghyuck says, & his tongue is dry in his mouth. Jeno looks like a deer caught in the headlights with the way his eyes pull open.

Jeno's breathing gets louder. It is audible in the room, bouncing between the opposite boy-bookends he has on either side of him. His closed fist pulls on the necklace around Donghyuck's neck, moving him close. 

"Yeah?" Jeno says, other hand reaching back to touch Mark's. "You think I'm pretty?"

Their noses are touching. Mark whines. Donghyuck reaches over Jeno's body with his left hand to touch their hands; fifteen fingers touching just slightly. 

"Kiss me," Jeno pants, & his nose bumps Donghyuck's own, moving his lips upwards. His breathing is loud & heavy. Jeno looks pretty like this, carnal and needy in a way neither Mark nor Donghyuck has seen. His small hands look miniscule compared to Donghyuck's own, in a way that makes his stomach swirl. 

Mark's hand squeezes hard on Donghyuck's own, his nails digging into the skin between Donghyuck's knuckles. Nervous, he glances up at Mark's face- & is met with a bit lip & hooded eyes. "Please," Mark says, soft in a way that Donghyuck could have missed it. 

Jeno pulls on the chain again, & then his lips are on Donghyuck's. It is starkly different from kissing Mark, because Donghyuck is in control, licking into the hot cavern of Jeno's mouth. His teeth bite gently on the soft swell of his lower lip, & in reaction, Jeno pushes further back into Mark, who drops his head so that his lips can make work of Jeno's neck. 

•

It is warm in the morning, far warmer than usual. When Donghyuck opens his eyes, the freckled-boy's eyes are open too. 

Donghyuck has nothing to say. All thoughts leave his head when his eyes trail from the chains that layer on Jeno's bare chest to the constellations on his face. He looks at Mark's sleeping face, reaches over & swipes the hair away from his forehead.

His hand moves from Mark to Jeno's first necklace, closest to his collarbones. Jeno's back arches, and he sucks in a deep breath. Mark stirs.

"We," Donghyuck begins, voice soft & raked with sleep. His stomach has jumped deep into his throat. Donghyuck moves his hand, warm on Jeno's pulse point. "I," Donghyuck tries again. Jeno lets out a soft puff of air, and visions from last night coat his eyelids. 

He thinks of Donghyuck's hand squeezing harder, of the way Donghyuck kissed down his neck, of Mark's whispered praises in his ear. "I really," Donghyuck attempts a final time, and the words seem to stick hard in his throat. 

Jeno doesn't think, doesn't let him finish, before grabbing Donghyuck's wrist & Donghyuck fears Jeno can hear his heartbeat.

Jeno presses a kiss to the flat of Donghyuck's palm. "I already know."

Donghyuck thinks back to the hallway, the way the blood spilled down Jeno's face.

"You already know," Donghyuck repeats, chest warm.

•

Donghyuck learns he likes it soft, too. 

He likes the way Jeno cards through his hair as Mark holds his hand when watching TV late in the evenings. He likes the way his bed is a little more cramped, the way he is surrounded by warmth on all sides when he wakes up. He likes watching Mark's tongue slowly explore the backs of Jeno's teeth.

He likes things soft, like the skin of Jeno's hands, hands that slowly work him to orgasm, hands that rub his back and his shoulders when he is tired. Soft like Mark, who has made his heart ache since that very first time they kissed, who has started to cook breakfast in the morning now, for the three of them, because Jeno has taught him how to make the best scrambled eggs the world has ever seen.

Donghyuck realizes during breakfast of that morning, the light seeping through the blinds & the shadow of three cereal bowls painted against the brick wall, in the contrast of Mark's bare chest & Jeno's freckled face, that they are whole together. 

They are each a third of an equation that has only one solution.

Their equation makes more sense than anything ever has.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading  
> comments n kudos are so appreciated


End file.
